


Basins and Buckets (for bailing out the flood)

by Cards_Slash



Series: The Lightning Strike [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Season 2, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-28
Updated: 2016-04-28
Packaged: 2018-06-05 02:21:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6685387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cards_Slash/pseuds/Cards_Slash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean learned everything he knows from his father.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Basins and Buckets (for bailing out the flood)

**Author's Note:**

> repost from LJ (2011, I think)

The thing about John Winchester is that he was a son of a bitch—a real _God-damned_ son of a bitch. (Not that Dean had ever met his grandmother and barring a little sojourn in heaven he sincerely doubted that he ever would. He would never speak ill of someone he’d never met and never will and he made it habit not to enrage the dead because they have a nasty way of coming back to bite him in the ass—literally.) But John was his father and he’d done everything in his power to make sure that his sons would be ready for whatever the world threw at them. He gave them the weapons and he gave them the knowledge and he gave them the thick-skins to _survive_ and every night before he went to bed, Dean had to remind himself that he’d be dead if his father hadn’t taught him everything he knew. 

\--

Sam was in his lap, naked to the fucking _skin_ and gripping his shoulders in his too-big and not-at-all-feminine hands, pulling at him while he gnawed on his mouth like he was starving for a taste of blood. His body was too damn big and too fucking hot but his skin was slick straight down his back to his ass that was pressed against his lap close enough he can feel the heat of the bare skin soaking straight through his jeans. Dean’s hands were on Sam’s sides, fingers stroking along his ribs and the muscles and he wasn’t (was _not_ ) thinking about how this was his baby fucking brother in his lap moaning against his tongue and pulling at him like every-other-common whore that wanted his dick. 

No, he didn’t think about the water stains on the ceiling or the come stains on the mattress under the scratchy cheap sheets under his ass. He didn’t think about the salt lines around the doors and windows that they laid down as soon as they were through the door or his gun that was right within grabbing distance of the knife right next to it. He didn’t think about how Sam and looked at him when he dropped his bag and said something about a long-fucking drive and being glad to have a real bed. He didn’t think of how Sam had been saying that same thing since puberty hit him like a fucking freight train and he grew a god-damn foot in a year and Dean (and Dad) had to steal his clothes for him just so he’d have something to wear that fit right.

No, he didn’t think of all the nights of their life that had come and gone in motel rooms with their father or how wherever he was (in hell, for you Dean-O, so you could _live_ and you could _take care of Sammy_ ) he’d be spitting fucking mad to find his two sons fucking. 

Dean didn’t think of that because Sam was two-palms-and-ten fingers clutching at his face and tipping his head and kissing him so damn hard and so damn deep that it felt like he was trying to crawl down his throat and take everything that Dean had to hide. His shoulders were already naked and his pants were undone but still on his hips and he was fine with that because it was one line of denim and one line of cotton before he was naked and Sam had all of him all over again. Dean ran his hand up Sam’s back, palm flat against the bones of his spine knobbing out under his skin and then down again stopping where his back dipped before his hips and then his ass and Sam muttered something into the kiss that sounded like a curse or an encouragement. His hips rocked against Dean and his dick was hard and hot and _wet_ bumping against Dean’s naked belly.

“Dean,” Sam said against his ear with his hands still spread around his face. He pushed and Dean leaned his head back, bared his throat and closed his eyes. His hands moved where they wanted, up Sam’s side, around his chest (felt his heart beat, felt his heart just _pounding_ and all for _him_ ) to his shoulders. All of his muscles were taut and his breath was punching into the air across his red lips. Dean knew without looking that Sam’s eyes were slits on his face and glittering in the dim lamp light while he stared at him. Dean’s thumb was against his throat when Sam swallowed and when he said, “Dean,” again it sounded _damp_ like his mouth was watering for just a fucking taste. His forehead bumped against Dean’s temple and his thumb slid across Dean’s lower lip, pushed inside his mouth and grazed his teeth and tasted like table-salt and salt-sweat and gun-metal. His lips followed after, his tongue sliding down into Dean’s mouth again. His kiss was a shot of hard liquor that burned in Dean’s belly and he _wanted_ it so bad it moved through him like _pain_.

“Sam,” Dean said when he gave because he _always_ gave. (He didn’t think of their father, burning in hell. He didn’t think of the last thing he’d ever said or the first thing Dean ever remembered him saying.) His hands tightened on Sam’s shoulders, fingers slipping up to his throat and then into his hair and pulling it without meaning to and wanted him closer. He leaned up and kissed back and Sam smiled against his lips and into the kiss and pushed his ass down against him, rocking back and forth. “Oh fuck,” Dean mumbled, “Sam—Sammy.” He kissed him again and tasted diner food and _Sam_ and felt his whole body moving when he kissed back and how his hand dropped down to press across Dean’s chest where his heart was just _pounding_.

It was Sam that rolled them on their sides, Sam that put a leg across his, that wiggled his jeans and shorts down so they were tangled at his thighs. It was Sam’s big hand and Sam’s clever grin as they rutted against one another in the grip of their fists, rubbing dicks together and gasping against each other’s mouths. He opened his eyes and watched Sam watching him, watched his mouth and his tongue and his tight-white teeth when he hissed and jerked forward harder-and-faster. Dean grunted and bit his lip and didn’t gasp, pushed forward into the too-dry slide of their dicks and pulled at Sam until he could kiss him again, wanted to kiss him and not watch him. Wanted to close his eyes and never-ever look because there were so many things about his baby-fucking-brother he should never have known.

When Sam came it was with a shudder down his body and a quick snap-snap of his hips before he spilled against Dean’s hand and belly and dick and kept right on moving through the orgasm that made him bite back a noise like a whimper. His head dropped back and his jaw tightened and Dean pushed his face against his neck and felt the cords and veins standing out so prominently it felt like brands digging into his skin.

“Dean,” Sam gasped. His arm wound around him, held him closer and he kept moving with him until Dean was coming too.

\--

 

Dean was three-almost-four when he figured out his mother wasn’t fat just pregnant and all that talk of a new-baby-brother-or-sister wasn’t just theoretical but really happening. He hadn’t ever _not_ believed his mother exactly; she told him but he hadn’t _exactly_ been making space for the new baby either. His Daddy had been spending more and more time _somewhere else_ working on cars and making deals and drinking with his buddies instead of upstairs in the spare room painting it funny colors and fussing over decorating. His Mommy had been the one that sat on the floor with him and helped him learn to color and learn to write his name and read him stories in his bed at night. She’d been the one that wrapped her arms around him in the morning and held him on her lap while he worked through waking up and fed him hot cereal in the winter and pancakes and eggs and poured him glasses of milk and juice and only sometimes put him in time-out when he was really kind of bad.

Dean knew there was a new baby coming because his Mother told him there was and she read him books and took him to the park to meet other little kids. She let him visit at their houses now-and-again but she was always-always there to pick him up five or ten minutes early and if she seemed nervous sometimes about strangers or strange places he never even noticed. She kept two cans of salt in the kitchen and one in his room and he didn’t even wonder why she would do such a silly thing because she told him not to worry about it before she sang him to sleep.

So he didn’t worry about it and he didn’t worry about some new baby that was supposed to be coming because he had his Mommy all-to-himself.

But his Daddy brought the crib up to the new room and fixed it up right and they stood there in the room just looking around at how nice it all looked and Mommy was sighing-sad-and-happy like she was going to cry and didn’t know why. Daddy was grinning and proud and Dean figured it out right _then_ that this new baby thing with the books and the reminders and the gentle pushes to learn to play nice and Daddy and Mommy’s side-ways lectures about being a good-boy and taking-care-of-the-little-ones were all warning him that something was coming that was going to change his life _forever_.

The night after he asked his Mommy if she had to have a new baby, if maybe she could just _not_ have a baby and Dean could be her only baby and Mommy had laughed and kissed his head and promised that he was going to _love_ his new baby brother or sister and that everything would be _fine_.

\--

Sam got on his case about the drinking, of course. It wasn’t always with words, more with stares and carefully timed coughs like Sam had a constant frog in his throat he just _could not_ get out. That was all well and good and Sam could disapprove like he was someone’s nice upstanding mother and Dean could take his drink and find a different room and less discerning company. 

“Dean,” Sam said in the evenings when they parked the Impala to the side of the road and counted their pocket change to see if they could afford a hotel room or if the accommodations of scenic Impala’s back seat were the best they could do. There was a fifth of whiskey under the seat and Dean was thirsty as all hell and nightmares were rolling around behind his eyeballs just waiting for him to try and get a little sleep. “I don’t think we’ve got enough.”

No. “Hey, there was a bar—” Back there, down the road, they just passed it about an hour ago. He could hustle pool and Sam could hustle cards (maybe, if he remembered how) and they could line their pockets with chump’s change and find somewhere with clean sheets and a decent shower. 

“No, this is fine,” Sam said.

“Come on Sammy,” Dean said, “when has this ever been enough?” Long before Sam was too fucking tall to sleep across the backseat of the Impala, he was still convinced that he should have a bed and sheets and pillows. “Let’s just go back and…”

Sam shook his head and reached across to grab the keys right out of the ignition. “This is fine, you sleep up here and I’ll sleep in the back.”

Dean didn’t argue because there was no point in arguing but he watched Sam get out of the car and slam the door and just for a minute as bright and blinding as the morning sun he hated him for telling him what to do and for disapproving of him and for _not trusting_ him. When it passed he was left feeling sour and sick and thinking about all the reasons he didn’t trust Sam. 

(About the visions, about the powers, about how Sam was so fucking quiet and so fucking naïve.) 

“Fine,” Dean shouted at the back window while Sam walked away to take a piss or just take a walk. “This is great.” He leaned down across the seat and pulled the bottle out from under the seat. It was warm-not-cold but it was good enough in his throat that for a spattering of seconds while it warmed his whole body he didn’t feel anything at all but a buzz. He didn’t have to remember that his Mother was dead and his Father was dead and there was a demon that wanted his brother and that his brother would rather have been anywhere but with him. He didn’t think about the sex and he didn’t think about his promise and he damn sure didn’t think about how his father was screaming in hell all so he could live.

He sipped and sipped and sipped and when he fell asleep his dreams were dense-dark and imageless. 

\--

John Winchester saw black or he saw white but he sure as shit never saw gray. When Sam said he was going to Stanford and flashed his full-ride in their father’s face, John Winchester saw _red_ but not black or white or any fucking thing else. His gut reaction was always a shrieking _no_ and shoving Sammy behind his back in that space left between where Dean stood and where John stood where Sam would be _safe_ and never-ever (not once) get hurt. Here was Sam with a piece of paper and a grit-teeth frown telling his father to go fuck himself for the past eighteen years because he was getting _out_ and _away_.

Their father pushed and Sam shoved and Dean couldn’t say a damn thing to bring them back together. So Sam left and Dad drank and kept his lectures and rants and fury to himself and his tight-fists and pristinely cleaned guns. Everything Dean did was wrong and everything he said was wrong too but Dad kept him close and said _I want you with me_ until Dean heard them even when his Dad didn’t say them.

So John Winchester saw black or he saw white but he never told Dean he couldn’t talk to Sam anymore. He never said a single damn word about it. He never so much as mentioned Sam in passing and when he made trips to go and check on Sam at Stanford he acted like he was doing no such fucking thing. 

Dean decided not to talk to Sam all on his own and the silence gutted him worse than the anger on his father’s face any time Dean mentioned his brother. But Sammy was gone that-way and Dad was right-here so he took what he could get from his family and let it be enough.

\--

They nearly got Jo killed (not they, just Dean) and Sam was giving him that look like it hurt him in a way that Dean could never understand. Like he pitied him so much there were no words that could wrap themselves around the meaning in that stare. So they dropped Jo and Ellen back at the Roadhouse and let them have their moment and had no idea what the hell happened but it didn’t matter because Sam pulled at his elbow and said, “come on Dean.”

Later-later after drinks at the bar and Sam’s unstoppable pity and enough hustling to get them enough money to get a room in a low-class and filthy-ass motel, Dean was laying across the bed with all his clothes and jacket too. Sam was standing to the side, stripping down to his skin. When he was naked and Dean was looking (because he’d touched and he could look and he was drunk and _easy_ and maybe he wanted it) Sam put his knees against the side of the bed and looked down at him and said, “it wasn’t your fault.”

“Yeah it was,” he mumbled back, “I let her go.”

Sam’s legs were long-long-long and his thighs weren’t smooth and feminine pretty but there was something about them that made Dean want to touch so he did. His fingertips like feathers up the inside of Sam’s thigh right there at the edge of the bed. When Sam moved, Dean’s hand moved and slid up to the warm-and-muggy space where thigh met hip and the backs of his knuckles were brushing against his baby-brother’s dick and balls and _oh God_. “She went because she wanted to go,” Sam said. He settled on his knees over him, leaned forward so his hands were against the mattress and making it groan. “We got her back. It happens.”

“Shouldn’t have,” Dean said, “should have been me.” He moved his hand up-and-up so it was cupped around Sam’s ribs again. He knew what was happening, knew the fall of Sam’s hair looking down at him, knew it started with that look and Sam’s naked-skin in the cool-motel air. Knew that if he didn’t touch then Sam would leave but his hands were trailing across tan skin, fingers tracing nearly-forgotten scars that were just thin lines and little starbursts of memory on Sam’s skin. He let his hand trail up, over muscle and bone and flicked his thumb across a nipple just to see Sam’s eyebrows flinch before his hand was on his neck and his fingers were slipping up to his cheek. Sam’s mouth was open and his breath was hot and his arms were taut and he wasn’t saying a damn thing. “I should have told her she couldn’t go. She could have died.”

“We all could die,” Sam said. His lips were moving across Dean’s thumb and he was still just waiting for something (for permission, for want, for acceptance?) “It doesn’t always have to be you, Dean.”

Yes it did. He pulled at Sam and licked his lips and kissed him when he was close enough. Sam’s hands were on his clothes—jacket, T-shirt and jeans. He pushed and pulled and stripped away layers until his greedy hands were on Dean’s skin and his greedy fingers were tracing his body straight down to his dick. Sam’s hand was warm and firm and confident and Dean was half-floating on a buzz and couldn’t _even look_.

“Dean,” Sam said against his cheek, against his ear. His voice was a rough growl and not a baby-brother’s whine. “ _Dean_.” He tugged at his hand and pulled it up to his mouth, licked at his fingertips like they tasted like anything but dirt and steering wheel (maybe leather) and then sucked them into his mouth so they were grazing across his teeth and then getting tongue-fucked wet and needy. 

“Sam,” he moaned. 

Sam pushed his hand down, out of his mouth and down his body, into that tight space between them. His legs were spread open and he was rolling from his side to his back, tugging at Dean to follow him down. 

He knew (oh hell he _knew_ ) where this was going and he balked and pulled away and Sam held his wrist and fingers in his good hand and looked him right in the face, licked his red-rubbed lips. “Sam I can’t,” Dean said. It didn’t make a damn bit of difference because Sam was warm and pulling and pushing his sucked-wet fingers against him like he knew what he was asking for and wanted and what it meant.

“You can if I want you to,” Sam said. His stare was a challenge and he stopped pushing and pulling and just waited. He’d brought them this far but it was Dean’s spit-wet fingers that had to take them farther. Sam ran fingers through his hair and down to his neck and just held on there loose and easy and not at all concerned.

“This is crazy,” Dean mumbled, “I can’t—I’m not—” He was just talking to himself and not even he was listening because his fingers were pushing and not quite slipping but dragging into Sam’s body. He was tight-as-fuck and Sam’s grunt was nothing like tingly-good-feelings but he kept the shaking tightness of his thighs at bay. “Oh fuck,” Dean mumbled. He pressed his forehead against Sam’s chest. 

“Not yet,” Sam mumbled with a half-choked laugh, “not tonight.” He wiggled on the bed and pushed against his fingers and Dean was knuckles-deep in his brother and paralyzed. “Come on, Dean,” Sam said, “I thought you were good at this.”

“You’re not a chick,” Dean said back without thinking.

“Do something, man,” Sam mumbled. He was shifting on the bed and Dean had no fucking idea what he was supposed to do but moved his fingers out and in and damn near lost his mind with the suffocating clench of Sam’s body and the strangled gasp of his breath. “Again, come on. Do it again.”

He was lost, just moving, following instinct, kissing his way down Sam’s body—on his knees and thinking about nothing in particular but white-snow-static. He was good at this with women and Sam was anything but a pretty girl and Dean had no idea what he was doing but he knew how to use his tongue and his fingers and he figured the rest out along the way.

After, when the taste of Sam’s orgasm was swimming between his teeth and tongue, Dean was cooling across the bed and Sam was curled at his side with a thin smile on his lips and his eyes closed. It wasn’t so bad—not really—not even the worst thing he’d ever done.

\--

Dean never hated his father; not while he was alive. He never questioned him either; not after he learned (the hard way, always the hard way) that his father was always right and always had a reason for what he said. 

Dean never hated Sammy either—not really. Not even when he was four years old and Sammy was a strange bawling interloper that smelled bad and slept all the time and made his Mommy tired and took up all of her time. Not even when he was eight or maybe ten and he figured out that his Dad _loved_ Sammy and _trained_ Dean. 

Dean never hated his mother—not ever. Not even when she died and broke her promises and left him alone with a stranger who looked like his father and a baby that never cried anymore.

\--

Whoever said ‘the truth shall set you free’ never had to tell his brother that their father wanted him dead if he went evil. Dean didn’t feel free and he didn’t feel lighter—he just felt beat. If that was the weight of the secret off his shoulders or the work of the asshole Gordon he wasn’t entirely sure but he damn sure knew that he almost lost his brother somewhere in the day and he wanted to hold onto him with both hands and both legs and maybe all of his toes too.

Sam was nursing guilt about Ava and what could have happened to her and Dean was searching for the next case and nursing a bottle of something cheap and brown promising oblivion. 

“Let it go, Sam,” Dean said.

“Yeah,” Sam said across the motel room, “I’ll just let it go.” He was hunched over and heavy, looking as beat as Dean felt and just when it seemed like he was going to lay his head down and let this one pass, he looked up again. “Like you let it go? I should just _let it go_? You almost died, Dean.”

“No I didn’t.”

“For all we know Ava did die—it looks like she did.”

“You didn’t do that.”

“So what?” Sam demanded, “why does it matter—why should I _let it go_. You keep telling me to let it go and you keep telling me everything’s going to be okay but it’s _not_!”

Dean shoved the papers away and got to his feet, felt the weight of the bottle in his hand like a counterpoint to the stare Sam was giving him. “Sammy,” he said. (I didn’t almost die, you almost died. I was never anything but the bait.) Or maybe there was more to it than that, maybe it was more like: (she doesn’t matter to me, she doesn’t matter at all because I’ve got you.)

Sam kicked himself up to his feet, crossed the room with stomps and took the bottle out of Dean’s hand and stared down at him with all raw defiance. If their father had been alive they would have been screaming at one another but he was dead and all they had was one-another. Sam shook his head, looked away and took a drink, dropped his arm to his side and gasped at the cheap-nasty tang of it hitting his throat. “This is shit,” he said and then took another drink. “This is real shit.” He went around to his bed and dropped down onto it, rubbed his hand across his face and took another drink.

“It doesn’t get any better,” Dean said. He meant the alcohol but Sam nodded like he’d known that since the day he was born.

\--

Dean discovered alcohol before he discovered porn and that might just have said something about him he didn’t want to think about. John was a real son-of-a-bitch and he left them behind with friends and in empty motel rooms thinking they were all-alone with something to fear, but his rules followed them around like a bad smell that never washed off. Dean had them all memorized when he was ten and he was lethal-and-ready-to-kill before he was eleven so he figured it wasn’t even that big of a deal that he was drinking before sixteen. 

He did his fucking job; he kept his brother safe. He kept the weapons clean and he waited for John to get back from wherever the hell he thought he had to go. He never asked any fucking questions that weren’t absolutely necessary and he never let himself thing sneaky-doubting thoughts because a good son had faith in his father.

Alcohol wasn’t a good escape but it was a cheap one that kept him in the bed across the narrow space from Sam. It dimmed his reactions at the edges so he wasn’t throwing knives at shadows; it darkened his dreams so he couldn’t see flames and blood. It was a hell of a bitch the morning after before he built up a tolerance and learned to manage the symptoms but it was a sweet-forgiving-mistress the night of and he made love to it long before he got his hands anywhere near a girl.

John knew. Dean didn’t even try to hide it (maybe he thought John would tell him to stop). He was about seventeen and up-late drinking to the monster they’d sent back to hell and the aching-searing-white pain of his own ripped-open flesh when John sat down with him and poured himself a cup out of the same bottle.

They drank together—father and son—like they killed together. 

\--

Dean was never going to kill Sam and they all knew that. He wouldn’t have killed Sam if his own life depended on it. He wouldn’t have killed Sam if the whole world’s life depend on it—he _couldn’t_. He couldn’t do it for their Dad, he couldn’t do it for the world, he couldn’t do it for anyone but Sam himself.

“Dean,” Sam said later-after he’d already gotten drunk and begged him to be the one to kill him just in-case he turned evil and couldn’t be saved. His voice was raw and needy and _lonely_ in the pity party he’d built for one. He still had clothes on because they weren’t inside this weeks motel-room yet, still standing outside of it. Dean stood by the Impala because if he went that way Sam would take every single part of him and— 

“I’m going,” Dean said and motioned that way toward the strip of neon and liquor-stink. “Don’t wait up.” He slid back into the Impala and watched Sam by the motel door with the key in his hand and his bags hanging off his shoulder. He looked _offended_ and he looked _hurt_ but he hadn’t fucking been the one promising to kill his brother so he could _shut the fuck up_. 

He found a bar and a pool table and he hustled enough sweet-brown-oblivion that he was just _stupid_ with it by the time he found the motel again, parked straight by practice and stumbled up to the door he remembered Sam standing in front of. He fell into it belly-first and pressed his hands against the cool-hard-surface of it. “Sammy!” he shouted, “come on, Sammy.”

It wasn’t the door he was laying against that opened but one two doors away and Sam stepped out making his worried face and Dean smiled at him. Walking was harder when he was drunk—he was stupid when he was drunk—and Sam was taller when he was drunk. He was stronger when Dean was drunk—quicker, warmer, smelled better and he could catch his fingers twisted in his too-big shirts and lean up against him. He rubbed his face against his shirt—the smell of his neck and sweat and borrowed laundry mat detergent. “Sammy,” he said again.

Sam’s arms were like twist-ties when Dean was drunk. Sam was best when he was drunk, when he forgot all the rules his father taught him, when he forgot all the things he promised and all the times he’d almost-very-nearly failed. It wasn’t keep-your-brother-safe it was just don’t-fall-on-your-face and Sam was so fucking _strong_ when he was drunk. He didn’t shove, wrapped his twist-tie-tight arms around him and shuffled their two bodies into the motel room. His heartbeat was thudding-hard-and-fast and Dean could close his eyes and let the sound echo through him.

(If he were a little drunker he’d say, _don’t make me do it, Sammy, don’t ask me to do it, don’t you dare_.)

“Dean,” Sam said like his _heart_ was _breaking_ and his hands were on his face, the back of his neck, his arms and back. They were getting shorter and Dean wasn’t sure how to make all his bending parts move so when he landed on his knees by the bed it was like his bones had cracked. Sam was on the very edge of the bed and digging his heels in on the floor to keep from falling. 

Oh no, they were going to fall together—he wasn’t letting go, not ever again—and Dean pulled until Sam was on his ass and cursing. His arms were still around Sam, they were half on their sides. There were going to bruises tomorrow and he didn’t care, he’d break every part of his fucking body just to hang onto Sam. 

“Hey,” Sam said, “hey Dean.”

No, no, no, he just wasn’t ready. Sam fell back against the floor and Dean landed against his chest.

\--

If he thought all day and night he still couldn’t remember the last time he’d been afraid of dying. Hell, he could think for a year and still not remember if he’d ever been frightened of his father, of bullets and knives and killing. 

The first time he remembered John killing something in front of him it was a shape-shifter and he shot it in the head with silver bullets, one foot on its shoulder and his face so blank that he looked _inhuman_. 

Dean remembered thinking that he hated the thing they killed. He remembered wondering when he was going to be the one to strike the last blow. He remembered wondering what it felt like to kill—if it hurt, if it made you different afterward, if it would make him like his father (at last). 

He just couldn’t remember what he was like before he was sure that he could-and-would-and-had killed to protect himself and his family and perfect strangers that would never fucking know the truth.

\--

“You swore you’d kill me,” Sam said in the aftermath. He was two-days-after recovering from a demonic possession and the swollen, bubbled burn on his arm where Bobby had blistered the spell that kept that bitch trapped inside of his body. They were one-day-out from Bobby’s place looking for their next lead. There was nowhere to stay but the wide-open-places of nowhere in particular. So they were making a picnic under the stars on top of the hood of the Impala. Sam was sitting forward and Dean was laying back against the window.

“Man,” he said, “don’t start. You weren’t _you_.” Dean didn’t know many things for sure anymore but he damn well knew his brother and he knew that Sam could be a thousand things but he could never be _evil_. “It didn’t count.”

Sam ducked his head and turned the beer bottle on the hood of the Impala, hefted the weight of Dean’s words like the truth weighed something and sighed. He took a drink and dropped the bottle half-full off the side of the car, rolled to his side before leaned back and had his elbow against the window and his head rested against his hand. “Dean—”

“God, Sammy just shut up.” He took another drink and Sam kept staring at him until it was oppressive like a heavy blanket in the middle of summer and he wanted to shove him off the car just to get rid of his face. “I saved you,” Dean said, “that was the deal—if I couldn’t save you I killed you. Well I could and I did.”

He was ready for Sam to fight him. Dean just wasn’t ready for the too-soft touch of his giant-fucking hands turning his face away from the long neck of the bottle so he was looking at him. He wasn’t ready for the look of _sincerity_ on Sam’s face, or how much it hit him low in the gut. He wasn’t half-ready for the way Sam kissed him as light as a flower petal or something else soft-and-feminine and not at all what they did. 

He wasn’t ready for how much he wanted it like that. 

Sam’s thumb ran down the line of his cheek and he kissed him a second time, just as soft. Dean switched the hand holding the beer bottle so his right hand was free and the ache in his shoulder was unbelievable as he lifted it up and wrapped a hand around Sam’s neck. The hair on the nape of his neck was sweat-soaked already and Sam shifted on the hood of the car, against the windshield so something squeaked like a wail of objection. His mouth was just so damn soft and opening up against Dean’s—they tasted the same, like bad diner food and slowly-warming beer. Sam was working him over like he was a damn woman, with his big-ass hand on Dean’s chest rubbing circled against his chest so the shirt was bunching up with every little movement. 

Dean wanted to tell him to stop being so fucking stupid but all he could manage was to tip his head and open his mouth and let Sam show him how he wanted this to go. Sure he’d made love to pretty girls (like Cassie) a hundred years ago but they were always under him or over him but definitely always thinner and smaller and less dangerous. Sam’s hand snuck under his shirt and found the edges of the tape over the bullet wound in his shoulder, traced down to his belly and rubbed flat-and-insistent there. They were just making out, finding the way with their fingertips so when Sam’s hand slid between his thighs—over his jeans—he wasn’t even close to ready to know how fucking hard he was. “Sam.”

Sam’s hand worked his button open and his zipper down, he was busy kissing Dean’s neck, ignoring his voice, curling his body around in shapes his spine just shouldn’t have been able to make. They were sliding toward the edge of the hood and soon to land on their asses in the soft dirt but Sam’s hand was inside his boxers and working him over just as easy-as-breathing. 

Dean let go of the bottle, heard it knock against the hood and didn’t care, put the heel of his boot against the slick paint-job and spread his legs open, pushed up against Sam’s hand as he coiled his hand in Sam’s hair and pulled at it. They fell back into a kiss already-in-progress and Sam’s tongue was working its way into his mouth. 

Dean had never been fucked, never wanted to be fucked but he was flat on his back letting Sam push inside of his mouth thinking that if he just _asked_ he’d let him have whatever the hell he needed. His back curved, shoulders hard against the windshield, hips rising up and Sam’s mouth was over his but not against it anymore. He was smiling (and Dean could feel it—couldn’t see it), his hair was brushing against his forehead and closed eyes and he kissed his cheek and brushed his pointy nose against his face until he turned it in toward his left side—toward Sam and bared the length of his neck for Sam’s teeth.

_Take it, take all of it_ was a thought like fists in his head and Sam wasn’t listening to what he was screaming. He pushed his elbow against the car and lifted himself up, felt Sam’s hand pull out of his pants and sudden rush of cold air that followed after the loss. Sam was easy to roll back, press against the window shield and kiss. Dean wasn’t soft and easy and sweet and nice—his pants were hanging open and his shirt was up around his ribs and Sam’s hands were on his back pulling him as close as they could get with no space. 

It wasn’t love, just something stupid and blind that brothers weren’t even meant to do—he’d seen Sam every fucking way you could see another person but he kissed him with his eyes closed. When he touched his skin he wished like hell he couldn’t hear the catch of his breath or feel the way Sam moved into the touch instead of away from it—how much his heartbeat jumped and the sound of his legs parting to give Dean room to sneak between. It was Sam, not him, that pulled his pants open so they were both getting more naked in the open air. 

“Dean,” Sam said, maybe just so he didn’t forget, maybe so neither of them could forget. This wasn’t even something they did—neither of them were soft, neither of them had ever looked twice at a man before and they were getting naked with each other while their father screamed in hell. Sam wiggled, thumbs and fingers pushing at his jeans until his thighs were naked and he hissed at the chill of the car on his bare skin. Dean kissed his throat—just below his jaw and the pushed his palms against the glass and let his knees come right off the hood of the car. Sam was getting out of his jeans all the way down to his socks with his shoes on the ground. “Dean,” he said again (like a question) and then a prayer when Dean kissed his belly and wrapped a rough hand around his dick. His legs were long-long-long and bent at the knee, one heel on the bumper and the other against the hood to give him all the room to work he needed (or wanted). Sam’s hands were in his hair and on the back of his neck and his voice was so damn low in his gut Dean swore he could feel it on the roof of his mouth when he sucked on his dick.

Sammy didn’t stop wiggling, shifting his hips in circles and making little grunts-and-almost-whines like there was just something missing for the world’s sloppiest blow job ever given and Dean started to pull off his dick to ask him what the hell he wanted when Sam’s hand tightened against his head and held him there. “Just,” Sam said all grunt-and-groan, “your fingers. Like before.”

So he rolled his fingers (one, two) in the spit on his chin and rubbed them against Sam’s ass until one or the other of them couldn’t take it anymore and then pushed _in_ and wished like hell the way Sam’s body went still _at last_ hadn’t shot straight down to his dick. 

“You’re killing me,” he said against his hipbone as he fucked his fingers into Sam and watched his face as it twisted up and his hands had no idea where they were going and his back wasn’t sure if it wanted to be arched up or flat down but his hips were rocking back into every blunt push of his hand. “You’re killing me, Sammy.” Then he kissed his belly and curled a hand back around his dick and sucked him down all over again.

“Oh shit,” Sam moaned for all the stars to hear.

\--

The truth was that Dean wanted Sam. He wanted him to hunt with him. He wanted him to take up the same space as him. He wanted him to be there to _care_ for him because Dean wasn’t even sure how to care about anything except his brother and his father (not even himself).

More than anything— _anything_ —he wanted Sam to want to be there. 

In the end, he didn’t get that but he got Sam and he made that be enough.

\--

John taught them a lot of things but he made sure to teach them never to see the humanity inside of a monster. Evil was _evil_ no matter what it looked like—Dean knew that and he kept it like a shield around his chest because if he started thinking about it he would drive himself insane with it. Sammy though—Sammy saw the good and the humanity in everything. Sammy wanted to save people that couldn’t or didn’t save themselves.

So Dean would have killed a werewolf and he would have walked away feeling no worse for the wear.

Sam killed a girl named Madison who turned into a werewolf and he was a _mess_ of limbs and red eyes. 

A hundred miles of road later and Sam was still a wreck, looking out the window and not at the road—just staring at this mistake and the one before, cataloguing all the things and people he couldn’t save no matter how hard he tried. The weight of his guilt was an oppressive silence and heat inside the car until Dean couldn’t take it. Fuck some girl named Madison who might have made Sammy see the difference between the life on the road and needy-fucks with your brother and real want.

Dean found them a room for the night, carried all their shit and damn near carried Sam too if he hadn’t gotten up and carried himself. He kept his silence while Sam took a shower and he scrubbed himself down in the kitchenette sink so his arms and face were pink and the waist band of his jeans-and-boxers were damp from the drips of water. He washed his hair using the complimentary dish-soap since Sam had the complimentary shampoo and all the free towels. 

“You could have waited,” Sam said. He tossed his dirty clothes on the floor (sloppy) and reached down on the bed to grab his bag. “I wasn’t in there that long.” 

“Not the first time I’ve taken a shower in a sink,” Dean said. He rubbed his hand through his short-wet hair and felt for soap-bubbles and found none. Sam shrugged his shoulders and found boxers to pull on. “Man, come _on_. It’s what she wanted—hell, it’s what you want if you go all darkside.”

“Right, and you’re just going to be so cheerful after you put a bullet in my head?” Sam demanded. (No-no-no.) “Dean, that—I didn’t mean that ok? Just let it go.” He shook out his shorts and fiddled with them until he found the tag in the back and then turned around and sat on the end of the bed naked and rubbed his head. “Say something.”

“Want a drink?” Dean asked.

Sam’s laugh was just a bark—hateful and hurtful and cut off short— “No. No, I don’t.” He looked up past his wet-and-stringy hair to watch Dean screwing off the lid of the liquor bottle that usually stayed under the seat in the Impala. 

“You sure man?” he asked and tipped it up to take a swallow. It burned out his throat so his voice was rough and wheezy. “It’ll take the sting out of it.” He walked over to where Sam was sitting (still naked) and held the bottle out to him. “Come on Sammy.”

Sam took the bottle from him, took a swallow and then dropped it to the side with his boxers he still hadn’t put on. He grabbed Dean by the pocket and pulled him forward; licked at the edges of his lips where the liquor was caught in teardrops and kept pulling at him until he was straddling his lap on the edge of the bed hoping like hell Sam was strong enough to keep him from falling. “I don’t want fucking whiskey,” Sam said against his face and then kissed him. 

His mouth felt like a bruise—all raw and sore and pulsing—and he fought back against it on blind instinct. Sam shoved and he shoved back until they were on the bed—breathless and Sam’s hands were yanking his jeans down and his teeth were worrying the same spot on his neck so it felt as hot as ripped skin and blood. “Jesus,” he gasped.

“You don’t fucking understand anything,” Sam said, “you don’t understand anything that isn’t spelled out for you.” His hands were so tight on his skin they were leaving livid white-and-then-fading-red marks. “I want this—I want you.”

Oh God.

“Shut up,” he said. He covered the words with his mouth, shoved them back down Sam’s throat with his tongue and followed after him when he tried to roll away. Dean was on his knees and hands over Sam, pushing down against his body, dragging his dick along his baby-brother’s shower-damp hot-skin. He wanted to smother the words, he wanted to beat them back so they were never said or heard and couldn’t _ever_ be taken back or taken away from him. 

Sam was urging at his back, at his hips, pulling him down and daring him to believe in sweet-fairy-tales. They both knew the shadows were full of monsters and they both knew there was nowhere safe left in the whole world and if Dean lost this he’d lose his fucking mind. Sam was spread open under him, fumbling for the bag at the side of the bed and gasping out, “I want—Dean, I want to fuck.” If he were more than a collect of hurting nerve-endings flayed open to the air he would have told him no—he should have told him _no_ but he couldn’t. 

They fumbled through finding a condom and motel lotion—greasy and perfect—and Sam kissed him with his arms and legs and whole body holding Dean so fucking close he couldn’t think or breath but just feel.

\--

John Winchester was a son of a bitch, a real _God-damned son of a bitch_. But John was his father and he’d done everything he knew how to make sure they were ready for the fight that was coming after them—he taught them everything they needed to know to survive. He’d taught them that evil was _evil_ without remorse and without pity and it could never be _trusted_ and should always be _killed_. He’d taught them that family was _family_ and he’d taught them (by example, for once) that you did _everything_ for your family.

Sammy saw the good in everything—wanted to save everything, wanted to believe that if he believed hard enough the whole world wouldn’t be made of shadows and demons and creatures and men like Dean that knew you survived by staying the strongest and killing anything that wanted to _eat you_.

Sam died with a good heart and Dean sold his soul to a demon just to bring him back.


End file.
